FreeLists / dokuwiki / [dokuwiki] dokuwiki comments from a newbie

[Jason Keltz <jas@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have been experimenting with DokuWiki for a few weeks.  I think the 
system is powerful, has a very "clean", clutter-free feel to it.  It's 
easy to use, and I intend to integrate it into our own systems for use 
by many users.  Doing some experimentation, I have some feedback that I 
was hoping to pass on to the developers, and I believe that this is 
probably the best forum for this feedback.
As you know, the default Dokuwiki template does not include an optional 
sidebar.  In order to get a sidebar, you need to go out an install one 
of the custom user-written templates.  sidebars are very common these 
days.  I would love if the default installation included a simple 
sidebar.  If I use the default template on my site, I can be pretty much 
guaranteed that as new versions of Dokuwiki come out, that the template 
that I am using for my site is going to work because it will have been 
tested *with* the dokuwiki version being released.  I can't really say 
that about the custom user-written templates.  On the templates page on 
the DokuWiki site, you can see that some templates are frequently 
updated, and others have stopped working many versions ago.  It would 
also be nice if there were a few other template choices that came 
directly with the system.
It would be great if plugins could add their own section to the "edit 
bar" that comes up when editing a page.  The default Dokuwiki system is 
so great, but it becomes even more powerful when you add plugins. 
However, when you add plugins, each with their own codes for so many 
things, you have to remember so many codes for so many things.  If these 
plugins could add their own code to the edit bar, you could get away 
without reading the documentation every time you want to use a plugin 
that has crazy codes.  Take the math plugin as an example -- it would be 
terrific if there was a drop down menu with all the codes that you could 
use.  It would be nice if with the discussion/blog plugins, you could 
click an icon to insert a discussion/blog/etc.
The "index" feature is really great and gives a top-down overview of the 
whole wiki site.  It would be nice if the "index" was extended to 
provide a "create" button that let you create either a new namespace, or 
add a wiki page to an existing namespace.  I know that there are other 
ways to create pages, but I just think that this would be a nice feature.
The ACL system is very powerful -- probably one of the most powerful 
that I have seen looking at some of the other wiki packages.  However, 
the fact that it only displays the ACLs for the current namespace seems 
a bit confusing.  (I know that there is a different plugin that gets 
around this).  All of the other options in the "admin" menu apply to the 
whole site, but the ACLs only apply to the current namespace.
The biggest problem for me by far is that there are so many plugins that 
I want to use to increase the default capabilities of Dokuwiki (and I 
know I'm not alone here), yet if I use these plugins, each written by a 
different developer, then each and every time I upgrade my Dokuwiki 
package, I need to be aware that I need to individually test each plugin 
that I am using.  Plugins which aren't released with the package may/may 
not work with a new version.  If they don't work, the developer may 
choose to update it, or may choose not to update it leaving me without a 
plugin.  It would be wonderful if Dokuwiki users could vote on the 
plugins on the site, and if there was enough interest in a particular 
plugin, it would be great if it could be integrated right into the 
default install so that it could be tested and released with the 
package.  This would save a lot of time, effort, and trouble.  Of course 
having the capability for everyone to write their own plugins is 
wonderful, and I'm glad that there are a lot of people writing great 
extensions to Dokuwiki.
None of these are show stoppers for me.  Again, I love the system, and I 
appreciate all the people that do the hard work on development of 
Dokuwiki, templates, and plugins.  It's a wonderful product, and I look 
forward to using it for a long time to come.
Jason.
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